Syracuse, NY -- The Turnipseed family of Syracuse scored four of the 240,000 tickets to watch President Barack Obama's swearing-in from the Capitol grounds. The free but priceless tickets came before Christmas.

Terry and Lydia Arnold Turnipseed, who teach law at Syracuse University, started talking up the event around the house. They explained to their daughters -- Lucy, 8, and Grace, 6 -- the historical significance of electing the first black president. A great thing about America, they told the girls, is that everyone can witness a peaceful transition of power.

Dad told the girls how he had watched President Jimmy Carter's inauguration in Washington, D.C., with his mother. Mom described the Clinton and Bush inaugurations she had witnessed as a Washington lawyer.

Lucy decided to record the ceremony on her Flip phone and edit the video into a film to share with her third-grade classmates at Manlius Pebble Hill School.

Instead of filming the first family, however, Lucy's film will show her own family walking away from the Capitol. She did not see the swearing in. She did not even hear it.

The Turnipseeds were among the thousands of people with personal invitations from a member of Congress who never made it through the metal detectors.

The Washington Post said 4,000 people with blue or purple tickets were blocked from entering because too many tickets were distributed, entry procedures were bogged down and security officials were overwhelmed by crowds.

The people shut out included big donors to the Obama campaign, movers and shakers in the business world and an investment banker who got a personal invitation from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.

The Turnipseeds got their tickets from newly elected Rep. Dan Maffei, D-DeWitt, a friend to whose campaign they contributed money and volunteered time, and from the two senators in Terry's home state, Mississippi.

Lydia does not blame those legislators. But she wrote a letter to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., chair of the inauguration planning committee.

She also joined the legions of people who published their stories, pictures and videos on YouTube, Facebook and elsewhere. Sleepless at 4 a.m., Lydia started a Facebook group called "Devastated Blue Gate Ticket Holders for the Inauguration SHUT OUT." There's another one called "Survivors of the Purple Tunnel of Doom."

"I don't want to be petty about it, but I'm really mad," Lydia said.

Senate Sergeant at Arms Terrance W. Gainer told the Post, "(4,000) to 5,000 people were discombobulated. There were another 236,000 who were very happy with the service."

That comment made Lydia even madder. She said the number of people turned away must have much higher.

By mid-day Wednesday, the Joint Congressional Committee on Inaugural Ceremonies issued an apology. The committee said the agencies involved would examine the planning, screening and pedestrian flows to prevent similar problems in the future.

"We realize how important this inauguration was to so many people and the difficulties they endured to get here, so once again we deeply apologize to those guests who were not admitted," the committee wrote in a statement.

The Turnipseeds arrived at the gate at 8:05 a.m. Three hours later, they had hardly moved. Lydia said there was no information, just thousands of people and a big sign that told them they were at the blue entrance, the right place.

At first, people were in good moods, shouting, "I say Barack. You say Obama."

"The crowd was very happy until about 11:30, when it dawned on everybody that we were not getting in," she said.

They saw a generator go by and heard a rumor that the metal detectors were broken.

People started shouting, "Let us in."

She had to yell at people not to trample her 6-year-old. They were stuck in a surge. Someone who looked official yelled for the blue people to go to the orange gate.

So the crowd moved toward orange, but the blue people didn't have an orange ticket and were not allowed in. Then, Lydia said, she saw about 40 police run toward the blue gate.

Lucy sobbed.

"She said, 'I just can't believe I didn't see it,'" her mother said.

They started walking. They walked around the Capitol and down Constitution Avenue to Louisiana Avenue, where Lydia's step-mother was attending an office party. As they walked the 12 blocks around closed streets, they heard applause and assumed history had been made.

They saw the helicopter carrying the Bushes fly away.

Lucy captured it on her Flip phone.

By the time the Turnipseeds reached a television, the Obamas were having lunch.

They climbed to the roof of the office building, where they could see the Capitol in the distance.

They caught a glimpse of the presidential motorcade on the parade route.

"That was better than nothing," Lydia said. "There's something really horrible about being two blocks away and not even being able to hear him. For my 6-year-old, it would have been an ability to look back and say, 'I was there.'"